This year so far hasn’t been easy for a lot of companies in the world. We keep witnessing mass downsizing and budget cuts across multiple businesses. Everyone is trying to keep their belt tight and postpone any major expenses as much as possible for better times. Yet, a lot of companies continue to get by with their legacy systems that were built when Elon Musk was going to school in South Africa and the Internet was barely available. Those companies realize the need for modernization; however, their budgets are extremely limited.
Most businesses would see it as a major blocker for driving innovation. But this is only because they don’t realize they have budgets buried in the backyards of their data centers and IT spending. Though the reality is that it’s not that difficult to reach them. Here’s how your business can leverage those hidden treasures right away collaborating with cloud providers and their partners.
Pay as you go and pay less
Moving into the cloud can often decrease infrastructure expenditures and infrastructure support. We have many customers who saved costs significantly after retiring their on-prem data centers and moving to the cloud. The key benefit of the cloud is that organizations only pay for the resources and services they actually use. In addition, businesses can provision resources on demand and scale them dynamically. For instance, Intellias created a serverless cloud accelerator (for which we received a Silver Stevie ® Award) that allows companies to scale their infrastructure from zero
to the volumes of Netflix workloads in just a few seconds. Also, it doesn’t need a large workforce to manage it.
Get rid of unnecessary licenses
Cloud migration is an excellent opportunity to move from paying for server licenses to using open source. After the transition into the cloud, you can start benefiting from different cloud native alternatives that do not require licenses. For example, instead of using traditional on-premise databases, businesses can leverage AWS managed database services such as Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service), Amazon DynamoDB (NoSQL database), Amazon Aurora (MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible database), or Amazon Redshift (data warehousing). The biggest benefit of using managed services will also be the noticeably less IT workforce needed to support it. And that is very important given the large-scale staff realignment processes taking place now.
Even if you are not fully in the cloud yet, you can still benefit from numerous cloud vendors’ services. AWS in particular offers quite an interesting program called “Optimization and Licensing Assessment (OLA)”. OLA helps companies analyze their existing software licenses and identify opportunities for cost optimization. It assesses license usage, identifies unused or underutilized licenses, and provides recommendations for optimizing license allocation. By optimizing license usage, companies can avoid unnecessary license expenses and reduce overall software costs. Some businesses believe that all their servers are used to full capacity. However, after they undergo OLA, they discover that at least a quarter of their servers are ‘zombie servers’. This means they have either very little or no meaningful utilization, but still require payment for the annual license.
Going cloud made easier…and cost efficient
The most beloved program for businesses that decided to embark on the cloud journey is the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) from AWS. MAP is a proven cloud migration methodology that provides access to AWS experts who can provide guidance, best practices, and hands-on support throughout the migration journey by joining forces with proven AWS partners with MAP eligibility.
At Intellias, we are happy to offer this benefit for our customers too. The program enables a complex audit of organizations’ existing infrastructure by conducting Cloud Readiness Assessment that helps companies evaluate their current environment, identify potential challenges, and assess the level of readiness for migration. By undergoing a comprehensive assessment, businesses can proactively address migration challenges and minimize unexpected costs. In some cases, AWS partners, including Intellias, can offer Cloud Readiness Assessment free of charge (yes, it’s free) for their existing customers and prospects to help them build an internal business case for migration.
During the migration process, as part of the MAP methodology, an organization can undergo a Well-Architected Review to evaluate the architecture of their workloads before and after the migration. This review helps the stakeholders ensure that the migrated workloads are aligned with the AWS Well-Architected Framework principles and adhere to best practices for cloud architecture. The framework developed by AWS helps businesses assess their workloads against best practices and make improvements for performance, security, reliability, cost optimization, and operational excellence through a comprehensive assessment.
Read also: AWS Cloud Migration Strategies
Moreover, by incorporating the Well-Architected Review into the migration process, businesses can identify any gaps or areas of improvement in their architecture and make necessary adjustments. Of course, this review can also be done beyond the migration scope for the sake of an infrastructure health check. We, at Intellias, offer this service to our existing clients in order to keep their workloads safe and ensure timely planning to keep their expenses optimized.
Summing up, today’s businesses have access to multiple cloud innovations that can replace traditional costly licenses heavily used in the on-premises environment as well as to various programs of cloud vendors that help minimize the cost of the cloud journey based on the best practices honed from the experience of thousands of migrations. Embracing these programs not only ensures the success of migration initiatives but also helps companies keep their workloads secure, plan ahead, and optimize expenses in the long run.
On top of that, as teased in the headline, migration can actually help with the sustainability input of a business. A recent study conducted by 451 Research demonstrates that businesses can impact sustainability initiatives as they migrate to the cloud and lower their workload carbon footprints by nearly 80%. Although it only relates to the data centers’ influence, it’s still a significant contribution.
